Stockyards “Lame In”

Aw, man! Last week when I endorsed Queer Liberaction’s Saturday ”Queer Kiss In” at the Stockyards, I sure didn’t have the lame result in mind: Earnest LGBT activists impeded from joyous lip-locking by a clueless band of right-wing Christians brandishing “Homosexuality is a Choice” placards that even an anti-gay fundraising powerhouse like Focus on the Family has discarded as ridiculous. At least update your ignorance, brothers and sisters of World Missionary Baptist!

I imagined a Stockyards “Kiss In” scene like this: Gay boys and gay girls, covered with flower- and paisley-shaped tats, gently approach a group of snarling, swearing, bent-on-ass-kicking cowboys. The approach causes one dyed-in-the-wool gaybasher to raise his hunting rifle in warning. One of the queer lovers-not-fighters plants a small rainbow flag in the rifle barrel’s end. The flag waves majestically in the dung-scented breeze. The once-intolerant roughnecks collapse in tears of respect and (sexually ambiguous) affection for their gay neighbors in the Fort, and everyone leaps into a tightly choreographed, “Slumdog Millionaire”-style dance finale.

The dreary reality of Saturday’s event? Poor Jesus – who never breathed a word about homosexuality, but who said a lot about how to treat the outcast – gets dragged in and misrepresented again. Oh, well. I’m glad intelligence and biblical accuracy were the only casualties in this potentially explosive faceoff.